Description
Book SynopsisIn New Dramaturgies: Strategies and Exercises for 21st Century Playwriting, Mark Bly offers a new playwriting book with nine unique play-generating exercises.
These exercises offer dramaturgical strategies and tools for confronting and overcoming obstacles that all playwrights face. Each of the chapters features lively commentary and participation from Blyâs former students. They are now acclaimed writers and producers for media such as House of Cards, Weeds, Friday Night Lights, Warrior, and The Affair, and their plays appear onstage in major venues such as the Roundabout Theatre, Yale Rep, and the Royal National Theatre. They share thoughts about their original response to an exercise and why it continues to have a major impact on their writing and mentoring today. Each chapter concludes with their original, inventive, and provocative scene generated in response to Blyâs exercise, providing a vivid real-life example of
Trade Review
"Reading Bly’s book was a special treat [...] Many times, when you’re working on a problem and can’t come up with an answer, if you keep reading, the answer will come to you. Such was the case reading New Dramaturgies."
- Edwin Wong, Doing Melpomene's Work
Table of ContentsForeword Introduction 1. The "Sum Forty Tales from the Afterlives" Exercise 2. Bly’s "Einstein’s Dream" Exercise 3. Bly’s "Character’s Greatest Fear" Exercise 4. Bly’s "Character’s Greatest Pleasure" Exercise 5. Bly’s "Kafka’s Train" Exercise 6. Bly’s "Music Memory" Exercise 7. Bly’s "Myth" Exercise 8. Bly’s "Nashville Film Overlapping Dialogue and Storyline" Exercise 9. Bly’s "Sensory Writing" Exercise Index